Entering the ring to fight for your dollars once again are Amazon and Walmart. They are both discounting 79014 Dol Guldur Battle (Amazon | Walmart) down to an even $59.00, a 16% drop from $69.99 MSRP. 79011 Dol Guldur Ambush (Amazon | Walmart) is similarly discounted, 15% off of $19.99 for an asking price of $17.00.
While I was fairly hard on the The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in my review of the movie, and wasn’t particularly nice to the the last set I reviewed, Escape from the Mirkwood Spiders… An Unexpected Gathering and it’s feature of Bag End wowed me when I first saw pictures of the set from Toy Fair early last year.
More than that, this scene, along with the interaction between Bilbo and Gollum, that actually felt like Hobbit movie should feel. Instead of wide-eyed adventure and way too much action, we have a hobbit that’s turned upside down trying to figure out why a bunch of dwarves are eating all his food and playing with his knives. It was a good enough that a mini version was turned in to a San Diego Comic Con exclusive this year, for people with more money than good sense.
Make no mistake, the bar was set extremely high for The Hobbit sets when this set was first revealed. It’s visually striking, has a bevy of unique parts, and finally gives us something other than a mess of light grey or black parts. It’s not a cheap set, coming in $69.99, the second highest in the line.
So the question remains, does it live up to its promise? (more…)
When the above video was linked to me, I watched it with the expectation that I would actually learn something about LEGO and their working relationship with their licensors and, like the headline says, why LEGO is so expensive. Maybe that was my fatal flaw, having an expectation. But instead, I learned that having two people from the Wall Street Journal talk about LEGO without anyone from LEGO there can expose how inaccurate their facts are. For instance, LEGO’s set designers operate out of Denmark, and not Norway. And the headline? The headline says, “Why Are Legos So Expensive?” The video doesn’t exactly detail why it’s so expensive but maybe the published article they allude to explains it a bit better. Oh, and also, it’s LEGO not Legos. I’m not one of those grammar nazis that correct people all the time when they use the term Legos. I honestly don’t care and don’t expect the average joe to know the difference but from a news publication such as the Wall Street Journal, you’d think they’d know or at least have someone at LEGO briefly proof the copy for inaccuracies before going to set or publishing the article.
I don’t know why I’m nerdraging about the video. I realize they’re not LEGO nerds like we are, but still…
LEGO published a new video earlier today on their YouTube channel documenting the building of the life-sized Bag-end we reported on earlier this week. The video gives some great details on the model, such as the scale of the building and the larger scale of the minifigs, and the building process behind it. I swear, if I don’t get to see this in person at some point next year I’m going to be a sad panda.
I can only assume that this massive sculpture was built to promote the release of sets based The Hobbit, but I have no idea where it is (or where it’s going to be) displayed. I certainly hope it shows up at the NY Toy Fair in February though. You can view the original gallery on LEGO’s Facebook page, or on Flickr by clicking the image. Hopefully some better pictures will be forthcoming very soon.
This is what LEGO had to say about it:
It took a team of 12 model shop employees 3,000 hours to build this life size model of the LEGO Bag End set. In addition to containing over 2 million 1×1 bricks this model has working lights in the fireplace and over the bookstand as well as a chimney that really smokes!
Sorry to say, I like this a lot more than the movie itself.
Just a quick note since I’m tired. First up is Amazon selling The Hobbit sets at a 20% discount. Example: 79010 The Goblin King Battle is regularly $99.99 but it is now $79.99. 79000 Riddles for The Ring is the worst deal since they’ve already marked it up a few bucks over MSRP. After discount, the set only falls to $9.49, a whopping 50 cent discount. They’re out of 79003 An Unexpected Gathering, but you can pick up 79001 Escape from Mirkwood Spiders and 79002 Attack of the Wargs at 20% less than MSRP.
This may only apply to some of you, but if you’ve never shopped at Yoyo.com before, you should know that they have a 30% off coupon for first time customers. Included in the deal is the new Hobbit line. The only set they don’t have listed is 79004 Barrel Escape. The coupon has a maximum value of $20 making 79010 Goblin King Battle only $79.99 instead of $69.99 like you would expect. It’s still the best price we’ve seen on that set though. A good bet would be to pick up 79003 An Unexpected Gathering. It drops down to $49.99 after discount and you also get free shipping.
Amazon has almost all of The Hobbit sets now. The only one missing is 79004 Barrel Escape. They are even offering a small discount on 79010 The Goblin King Battle. The going price as I write this is $87.74, a 12% discount off of MSRP of $99.99. Full list of the sets available from Amazon is below except, of course, Barrel Escape.
Amazon has listed a few of The Hobbit sets on their site. A lower threshold for free shipping and no tax to most states might make this a better deal than Shop@Home but you do get VIP points with LEGO. Oddly enough, 79000 Riddles for The Ring is priced two dollars more than MSRP at $11.99. Shop@Home has this set for $9.99, so buyer beware. There’s a list below of what’s available. I’ll update this post throughout the day as more sets become searchable.
This’ll be a merry Christmas for sure. LEGO Shop@Home has just put up the entire Hobbit collection for sale on their site. You get free shipping with orders $99 or more. Order by December 18th for delivery in time for Christmas. Full list with prices below:
